On 13 Mar 2003 06:39:48 -0500, you wrote: >I think the key to understanding this move is to remember that companies >(to whom this product is being marketed) don't tend to live on the >bleeding edge. When it comes to writing software, it's about writing >software for the majority of your target demographic. The Gnome 2 stuff >is still getting the bugs worked out of it. (I like the look and feel of >Gnome better than KDE, but the inconsistency of the look and feel >between the apps that make up "Gnome 2" is painful.) It's akin to >writing Windows software. You can't write to the Windows XP "Luna" >interface exclusively; you most likely still have to support 98 and 2000 >clients as well.
Gnome 2 is apparently good enough for Sun, and should be stable enough by now for WS. If it isn't then it is time for Red Hat to seriously reconsider their Gnome emphasis and move to KDE. Gnome 2 isn't exactly bleeding edge anymore. And while the UI issues between Gnome 1 and 2 apps is an issue (I have complained about it in the past) the point is that shipping Gnome 1.4 at this point is just plain stupid. Ignoring the fact that many of the commercial applications WS is aimed at will be released on Linux requiring Gnome 2 the decision to release Gnome 1.4 means that anyone doing a large deployment of WS now already knows they have a major upgrade in 12 to 18 months when they finally move to Gnome 2. Either shipping WS with Gnome 2 now, or waiting another 3 to 6 months to ship WS, would eliminate this major change. And yes I know that major changes may come in the future anyway, and that can't be helped. But this is one that could easily have been avoided. >The listed applications are nice, but I imagine that there are 2 >applications for which this distro will be most used: 3D graphical >engineering workstations, and 3D special effects workstations (for >Hollywood). Did you even read the specs? WS includes XFree 4.1 yet the drivers for 3D with ATI cards require XFree 4.2! So those "target" markets will have to install unsupported upgrades in order to make the system useful, which begs the question of why then they would pay Red Hat $300 a seat for a system that Red Hat won't support. >It would also be great to use it as a front-end client for this type of >work. Only about half the codes we use have a Linux client, but that >means that certain people would be in good shape to make the switch, and >use a $3000 dual-Athlon SCSI-based workstation that will blow the pants >off the $25,000 dual J-class HP workstations we're currently buying. >Yes, 3D support will be limited, but if you choose your hardware >correctly, it can still be done. See above. You basically will be limited to NVIDIA because ATI does not support the old software used in WS. -- Phoebe-list mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] https://listman.redhat.com/mailman/listinfo/phoebe-list
